Tiger Woods and Judge Kavanaugh
Lead Summary
By
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By Jim Thompson
HCP columnist
On Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Course in Atlanta. Thousands of people were present and millions – via television – no doubt cheered him on.
It was his first win in five years.
A mere four days later, Judge Brett Kavanaugh faced a public hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The country seems to be about equally divided regarding their opinions of Judge Kavanaugh, with those opposing Judge Kavanaugh seething with rage and hate.
Woods was born in 1975. He had a stellar golf career until it started unravelling in 2009. Woods was married to Swedish model Elin Nordegren in 2004. The couple had two children, one in 2007 and one in early 2009.
But on Nov. 27, 2009, reportedly while trying to escape from his home in an SUV which his wife was allegedly pummeling with a golf club (wood or iron? Not reported), Woods’ vehicle collided with a fire hydrant near his driveway.
“…As the silence grew, so did reports of other Woods’ mistresses. On Dec. 2, 2009, Woods offered an apology to his fans and family, expressing regret for unnamed ‘transgressions.’ But as the mistress count rose to more than a dozen women, with phone evidence to back many claims…” etc. (www.biography.com).
Then, in August 2017, the Associated Press reported Woods was arrested on a DUI earlier in the year. According to the story, “The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, says Woods, 41, had THC, the active ingredient for marijuana; as well as the painkillers Vicodin and Dilaudid; the anxiety and sleep drug Xanax; and the anti-insomnia drug Ambien in his system when he was arrested at 2 a.m. on May 29 about 15 miles from his home in Jupiter (Florida). Officers had found him unconscious in his Mercedes-Benz, which was parked awkwardly on the side of the road and had damage to the driver’s side.”
Yet, Woods was cheered by many when he won his recent tournament on Sept. 23.
Now, when Woods was about 8 or 9 years old, Christine Blasey Ford claims that Kavanaugh forced himself upon her at a party when they were both teenagers. She has no corroborating witnesses. The closest she has come to a corroborating witness is Leland Ingham Keyser, who says, according to CNN, “…does not refute the veracity of the allegation, although she does not remember the alleged incident.”
There are no police reports; indeed, no one is sure even where the alleged incident took place. Cell phones were nascent devices; no phone records of a distraught Ford can be found.
There are a couple of telling images from the Senate committee hearing on Sept. 27, however. One is a video of Sheila Jackson Lee (U.S. representative for Texas’s 18th Congressional District) passing a well-stuffed No. 10 envelope to one of Ford’s lawyers, right in the committee room, with the witness (Ford) seated at the witness table. Perhaps it was a birthday card.
The other is the photo of all the handlers of Ford hovering around her before her testimony begins, with Ford coyly smiling.
Woods destroyed his family, a family with preschool children. It is a matter of public record, and it is recent.
Ford has thrown down a hazy, foggy memory from 36 years ago with no witnesses, no public record and no certain location. Yet, she is being taken seriously.
What is going on here?
Shelby Steele, in an Op/Ed in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 23 headlined “Why the left is consumed with hate,” offers some clues.
Steele asks: “How did the American left – conceived to bring more compassion and justice to the world – become so given to hate? But it began in the 1960s, when Americans finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings. That acceptance changed America forever. America would have to show itself redeemed of these immoralities in order to stand as a legitimate democracy.
“The genius of the left in the 1960s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored programs in history – at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion.”
Steele goes on: “The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power rebounded to the left. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was followed by a litany of bigotries ending in ‘ism’ and ‘phobia.’”
Steele concludes by saying “Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. [Hence] the left is stalked by obsolescence. There is simply not enough menace to serve its demand for power. For the American left today, the indulgence of hate is a death rattle.”
Shalom.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.
HCP columnist
On Sunday, Sept. 23, 2018, Tiger Woods won the Tour Championship at East Lake Golf Course in Atlanta. Thousands of people were present and millions – via television – no doubt cheered him on.
It was his first win in five years.
A mere four days later, Judge Brett Kavanaugh faced a public hearing in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The country seems to be about equally divided regarding their opinions of Judge Kavanaugh, with those opposing Judge Kavanaugh seething with rage and hate.
Woods was born in 1975. He had a stellar golf career until it started unravelling in 2009. Woods was married to Swedish model Elin Nordegren in 2004. The couple had two children, one in 2007 and one in early 2009.
But on Nov. 27, 2009, reportedly while trying to escape from his home in an SUV which his wife was allegedly pummeling with a golf club (wood or iron? Not reported), Woods’ vehicle collided with a fire hydrant near his driveway.
“…As the silence grew, so did reports of other Woods’ mistresses. On Dec. 2, 2009, Woods offered an apology to his fans and family, expressing regret for unnamed ‘transgressions.’ But as the mistress count rose to more than a dozen women, with phone evidence to back many claims…” etc. (www.biography.com).
Then, in August 2017, the Associated Press reported Woods was arrested on a DUI earlier in the year. According to the story, “The Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, says Woods, 41, had THC, the active ingredient for marijuana; as well as the painkillers Vicodin and Dilaudid; the anxiety and sleep drug Xanax; and the anti-insomnia drug Ambien in his system when he was arrested at 2 a.m. on May 29 about 15 miles from his home in Jupiter (Florida). Officers had found him unconscious in his Mercedes-Benz, which was parked awkwardly on the side of the road and had damage to the driver’s side.”
Yet, Woods was cheered by many when he won his recent tournament on Sept. 23.
Now, when Woods was about 8 or 9 years old, Christine Blasey Ford claims that Kavanaugh forced himself upon her at a party when they were both teenagers. She has no corroborating witnesses. The closest she has come to a corroborating witness is Leland Ingham Keyser, who says, according to CNN, “…does not refute the veracity of the allegation, although she does not remember the alleged incident.”
There are no police reports; indeed, no one is sure even where the alleged incident took place. Cell phones were nascent devices; no phone records of a distraught Ford can be found.
There are a couple of telling images from the Senate committee hearing on Sept. 27, however. One is a video of Sheila Jackson Lee (U.S. representative for Texas’s 18th Congressional District) passing a well-stuffed No. 10 envelope to one of Ford’s lawyers, right in the committee room, with the witness (Ford) seated at the witness table. Perhaps it was a birthday card.
The other is the photo of all the handlers of Ford hovering around her before her testimony begins, with Ford coyly smiling.
Woods destroyed his family, a family with preschool children. It is a matter of public record, and it is recent.
Ford has thrown down a hazy, foggy memory from 36 years ago with no witnesses, no public record and no certain location. Yet, she is being taken seriously.
What is going on here?
Shelby Steele, in an Op/Ed in the Wall Street Journal on Sept. 23 headlined “Why the left is consumed with hate,” offers some clues.
Steele asks: “How did the American left – conceived to bring more compassion and justice to the world – become so given to hate? But it began in the 1960s, when Americans finally accepted that slavery and segregation were profound moral failings. That acceptance changed America forever. America would have to show itself redeemed of these immoralities in order to stand as a legitimate democracy.
“The genius of the left in the 1960s was simply to perceive the new moral imperative, and then to identify itself with it. Thus the labor of redeeming the nation from its immoral past would fall on the left. This is how the left put itself in charge of America’s moral legitimacy. This bestowed enormous political and cultural power on the American left, and led to the greatest array of government-sponsored programs in history – at an expense, by some estimates, of more than $22 trillion.”
Steele goes on: “The greater the menace to the nation’s moral legitimacy, the more power rebounded to the left. If racism was necessarily at the top of the list, it was followed by a litany of bigotries ending in ‘ism’ and ‘phobia.’”
Steele concludes by saying “Today’s left lacks worthy menaces to fight. [Hence] the left is stalked by obsolescence. There is simply not enough menace to serve its demand for power. For the American left today, the indulgence of hate is a death rattle.”
Shalom.
Jim Thompson, formerly of Marshall, is a graduate of Hillsboro High School and the University of Cincinnati. He resides in Duluth, Ga. and is a columnist for The Highland County Press.